Fighting For Your Racism: A Conversation with Sherrette

Today Sherrette and I are interrogating the different ways one does and can fight for their racism. 

Transcript

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Welcome to If I'm Honest. On today's episode, I'm talking to my BFF, Jill, and my favorite white woman, Whisperer, and we're talking about fighting for your racism. She starts off the episode by talking about what that looks like for her and what it looks like for her early in her journey and what it looks like now. And basically what we conclude is that there's a difference between Authentic allyship and performative allyship and how our egos play a role depending on whether it's authentic or whether it's performative. And typically when it's, when it's performative, how our experience is rejection and how, what do we need to do if we are experienced in rejection because someone has called us in or called us out, what do we need to do? And it's the same old song every time, recover well. So come on in the room. And let's talk about it. Mm hmm. You good? I'm sorry. Hi, best friend. Welcome back to the show. Bye. What you looking at? I'm sorry. I'm sorry because it came up, it was like, are you, do you agree to let, to let the person record you? And I was like, what if I was just like, leave the meeting? Like you're on your own. I would never do that. Well, that would be, you know, we've been talking about this for an hour. So I'm so glad that you're still here. I'm here. I'm so excited to talk about this. Yeah. Well, welcome back. We are talking about, tell me, tell me, tell me, fighting for your racism. We are talking about fighting for your racism. Yeah. And I just want to say that I'm probably going to have to like do a little emotional check throughout the process. There's going to be several moments I anticipate where I'm going to feel feelings, but I just want to say that. I love that you named that. I think that's a very human response. And I think it's also clear communication. We love to see it. Um, so tell us, tell us how you fight for your race and what ways does that, what does that look like for you? What does that even mean? Maybe we should define it first. And then like you tell me as my good, good white girlfriend. I also just feel like we should say that what you're asking me to do is basically get naked for your audience. Okay. Well, take it off. Yeah, I mean, you want a little boob action, come on, but girl, like, I got, I got a little bit of both. Listen, we give it to us. All right. So we've had many conversations about this and to me fighting for your racism looks like Running from pain at the end of the day. I think it's a human response to run from pain and sometimes We have a hard time changing, change is hard, you know, developing new practices, all of that feels very painful and our brains can't really tell the difference between being chased by a lion or being called out or called in. It both feels like an attack. And so we run from that pain to try to defend our behavior. So for me, okay, so I think some past behaviors. For me, when I would fight for my racism is performance. Yeah, that was me to the T like I would like, let me be this woke white woman and use all this language. And in the process, first of all, like looking back on it, I'm like, Oh God, like you were so obvious. Yeah. Right. But really what, what I realized I was doing is trying to make black and brown people specifically women mostly like that was my, my M O how do I make black and brown women feel safe with me? Right. Right. And then unintentionally, how am I causing harm in the process? Right. Oh, that's good. Right. Like, I did that a lot. And I think I still do. I think I still do. And I think that I have a really hard time discerning now what's performance and what's really me. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that is a past behavior that I'm really working towards. Do you feel like there's something else that you do now, like as you have grown and developed and more now, how do you catch yourself, you know, kind of fighting for your rights? Yeah, I think when I get called in or out, that hasn't happened in a while, but when I get called in, I immediately, my brain, if I don't say this out loud, it's a hundred percent in here. I will start to negotiate. Why they're wrong and I'm right, or I'm justified in this situation, right? Like we had a recent conversation, you and I, where I'm going through some shit with somebody and like, I immediately go to like, Oh, well, but I'm right in this situation because they are doing X, Y, and Z. Yeah. Right. And, and I think it's, again, like, I totally get that it's a human response. And I have to be honest with the fact that I am fighting for my racism. And I think I saw this so apparently with the whole buzz corner thing, because it felt very much like a mirror right in my face. Right? Specifically, I'm talking about the situation when, when they were talking about, like, employing black and brown interpreters, and the host were talking about, but what if we have a deafblind individual? That is what I'm talking about, where we try to find exceptions. To say, okay, in this situation, we're allowed to be racist and discriminatory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When really the conversation was about the overarching system and habits and behaviors that white people do that continue to discriminate against black and brown people. But instead we're like, but what about in this situation? Can we be racist now? Is that allowed? And I was like, Oh, yeah, that's good. I appreciate about this conversation is because performative being performative and like putting on a show for to prove that your racism really the fight is that I don't have to change. Like I'm going to stay right here and show you how I am a good white person and I'm going to show you how I don't you know, like That's the fight for your racism by using something that you do and pointing it out as good, and it may not be good. And so we saw that with Bucky, um, when he was like, Well, what happens if I see a Black Deaf person who needs, you know, an interpreter, and, you know, I... I am I taking my preferred black and my preferred interpreters are black, my preferred. So you write, you have that. My preferred interpreters are black, absent, but black. Right. And you also have this kind of shift into white saviorism, which I call out. Right. And so this ability to say, you know, I'm, I'm good. And I will fight for black and brown people in a way that they have not asked for. That says that you don't have to look internally, that you don't have to evaluate and analyze the ways in which you cause harm, and therefore, you're fighting for your racism. Yes. It's protecting the ego, right? Which is, we do this, right? We will do anything. We will go to the ends of the earth to convince and reinforce that we are good humans. Even, even to really reinforce the belief that we hold about ourselves. It could be good or bad, right? Like, cause a lot of us have these negative narratives that we hold on to with dear life. Oh my gosh. But typically, generally we want to believe that we're good and we're going to continue to do whatever we can to make sure we believe that we're good, because we also can't accept the fact that there's not just binary options. It's not just good or bad. You say this to me all the time. You go, hun. You're not bad. You're just white. And that to me has been a real eye opener because I too totally accepted the belief that like, if I am racist, I am bad. Therefore I have to not be racist. I can't be racist and still continuing to be a good person. And I'm going to fuck up a lot. That option was never on the table until, you know. a couple of years ago. Yeah, I want to go back to this negotiating because, and I want to talk about the thing that just happened to me, which was, um, had the, the interpreter who was in my DMs talking about how, uh, Paris, Tiffany and I bullied, uh, the interpreter. And if you look at the receipts, that is just actually not true. That is not a real thing. Um, but she sent me a series and I'm, and I'm not kidding you, maybe 20, 30. DMs, and then she switched to text message and throughout the entire series of message that I never responded to, right? She asked me like 20 questions, right? Like, like this was the game that we're playing. 20 questions. And not like simple questions. Right, Like complex questions. Exactly. She wanted me to do the labor for her, um, because, you know, she, she, because that's what I'm doing. Keisha, you're doing this work, and so therefore you must do this work for me. So I run into her in person after having not responded to her text messages or her DMs. And we started a conversation and, um, she asked me, she was like, uh, asking me questions about, um, about something. She made an assumption about Black culture and she tied that to a specific thing and I'm like, that is so racist, that's not even funny. The, the tie was, actually, let me just go ahead and tell you the example. The tie was, she said, thank you so much for telling me about shoes. How you, how you say Jordan and not Nike Air Jordan, right? Like, thank you for telling me that because, um, because I know there's a, a huge cultural tie to shoe culture and black culture. And I'm like, shoe culture is global all over the world. Like, like, I'm not saying, but shoe culture could not live on the backs of black people. And so like, it's as if she just kept asking me to do labor. And so what I eventually say to her is, Hey, listen, I'm not willing to do this labor for you for free. If you want coaching, I'm happy to offer you some one on one coaching. We can meet for 50 minutes. You can come to me and you can tell me what's what. And we can talk through those things. Cause you absolutely need something that I cannot offer you for free. Um, and. And just to put a finer point on it, like, it's not just that you're not willing to do the labor for you because you already do a lot of labor for us for free, but in order to sufficiently unpack and address the questions that she had, which were great questions, it would have required hours, hours of labor, right? So it's not just like, let me shoot off this quick sentence or two. It's not that simple. Okay, go ahead. Sorry. Okay. Right. So, and then ask, and then telling her that I was offering her this coaching really said, she said I invalidated her experience, uh, and made her fearful not to ask questions or to make comments or to applaud interpreters for things like this in the future. Right. And so now you've asked me to do all this free labor. And. You're now blaming me for not, one, not giving it to you and the fact that you are resistant to change. And so like, oh, and up and through that it was, is a fight for her own racism and a voluntary performance of I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. And she could have kept all MDMs and them text messages to herself, right? Like that was voluntary. And it's that kind of way that she's negotiating. You know, yes. And here's what I think was particularly interesting about the situation, because let me just be clear to everybody in the audience. I've been pushing you to offer one on one coaching for. a while. I think it'd be incredibly valuable. I think that people would be interested and willing. So if y'all need to contact me, I'm happy to mediate this, but I think that this is a real serious need that our community has. And so I really pushed you to say, offer her coaching. Like she would be a great candidate for coaching because there's a lot to do. There's a lot to unpack with this. And she heard that as a rejection. So there's two things that I think happen. She is performing, right? So she's putting out, I'm a good white person because I'm asking these questions and I'm trying to make this genuine connection and I use this intentionally because I think that she has the best of intentions, but because she hasn't done enough work, the underlying problem is that she is performing and she doesn't realize it. And so then when you say, okay. I'm not willing to do this labor for free. She hears this as a rejection. And what's so interesting to me is that we are now only recently seeing this conversation happen in terms of like misogyny. So men go to women and say, Hey baby, why don't you smile for me? And when women don't drop to their knees, They get mad because they feel rejected. Right. And then they start to call names and sometimes even to an extreme violence. Right. Like we are seeing this conversation and we're going, yes, we got that. That's wrong. But we're not talking about that in, in the topic of racism. That's good. I haven't seen it. And the things that I read and the conversations that I have, I haven't seen that conversation when white people get rejected. And then their response is either shut down, I'm not going to ask any questions ever, I'm not going to ask Black people about whatever, shut down, or I feel like you've invalidated my experience. Exactly. The question though that needs to be answered even more than that is, is What is the difference between performance and genuine allyship? I think people are having a hard time with the difference. And so when you're just performing, then your response is rejection, right? That's what happens when you are genuinely an ally. If I call you in or call you out, you sit with that thing, right? Like you, you, you take responsibility for what's yours and you're able to say, I want to be a better human. Right. And instead of, so like, what's the difference. So you. I don't, I, I don't have a good answer for that, but for me, what my experience has been is it's sort of been like this. Right. So like there is a lot of performance, a little genuine allyship. And then as I learned the difference that became like this, I think there's still performance for me. Sure. I'm just going to say it. Like, I think that there's still performance for me. Sometimes I catch myself and like how I say things because. Because sometimes I get on autopilot and I'm not questioning why I'm asking something, why I'm trying to connect with a person, why I'm responding the way that I'm responding, and I think that's the difference. I think that performance is, I'm just doing this without really thinking about the intent behind it, or I'm borrowing somebody else's language. Yes. Yes, I'm doing this like, like, I'll give you an example when I learned the concept of everybody's always white people are always racist. Everybody's always racist. Yeah, particularly white people are always racist. Yeah, I was like, Oh, my God, this is beautiful language. This is performance, right? Like, I'm not at the point where I'm going. But why? Why are we inherently racist? And then what's the goal? If we're always racist, what's the goal? Just to be racist. I'm like, all right, okay, well, I'm just going to be, you know, fucking asshole all the time. Or am I going to say, or like, how am I trying to mitigate the harm that I'm causing, right? Like the underlying questions aren't being asked in performance. I'll add to that. Let me just add to that right quick is, is. You're not even aware. When you're just saying I'm racist, you're not aware that you're causing harm, or how you're causing harm, or what that harm might look like, so you can't mitigate something you aren't able to. Acknowledge or, or recognize, and I think that also is part of that too, is that those, the people who are really operating in, I'm racist because I'm white and I'm like, I'm racist and aren't able to tell me what, tell me more, tell me, come on, like, talk to me about that. Some of those people are not able to do that fast performance. Yes, exactly. It's the borrowed stuff. It's, it's, it's the and it's, yeah. And like, now I get why I sounded fake because it was like why I wasn't believed. And, and like, and I remember these moments of like when I started learning about anti racism and, and I remember like getting rejected and feeling. Like, I instantly want to go to the shutdown. I instantly want to go, well, I'm not good at this. This is causing me pain. I'm having to like, my ego is being challenged. Maybe I'm not a good person. I need really want to retreat and hide. And that's how I knew, like now looking back on it, that's how I knew it was performance. Right. So using this example of this, this colleague that, you know, the situation that you just said, like the reason why she responded is because she's performing now, I think luckily. Knock on wood. I'm now in a place where like, I can, thank you, where I can be rejected. And I have been recently, I have been rejected when I made an attempt to connect again, thinking that it's genuine, but like, it's not being read as genuine because allyship is not an identity that I get to just wear. Right. But because I was rejected because it's not being read as genuine, I can just sit with it. Yeah. I don't immediately. Let me not lie. I do go to the negotiation part, I call you and I'm like, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, and you're like, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. Yeah. And then what? Come on into the room. Come on into the room. Right? And then I can start to ask my questions, but what I'm grateful is, is that it stays here and I get to work through it. Sure. Before I cause harm and say it externally. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I will say is, I, when I, I didn't meet you. But I was kind of introduced to you as an idea, right, of someone I, someone was talking about. And you were described as a woke white woman. That's how you were described to me. And... At the time, I think maybe 2017, 2018, something, somewhere in there, at the time, Black people were really looking for allies, right? And so that performative language was really good. Like we needed the, we needed the performative language to see who was actually doing the work. And then through the pandemic, I think one of the things that we found is that People can talk, they can say the right things all the time, and it sounds good, and it looks good, and it's great, um, but it doesn't stand up in court, right, like it doesn't hold up, and, And, and it gets weaponized. And it gets weaponized, absolutely. Right. So I wonder, you know, how you shifted out of this kind of woke white woman to an ally. Like you heard yourself described that way too, I'm guessing. Uh huh. I don't know if, I don't know if I heard it. I don't, I don't know if I can say that I heard it. Like, which is good, because my ego didn't need that feed. Because period. Period. It was doing just fine on its own. Um, I don't know again. Like I think it was so subtle and it took a long period of time. It was, it was this, right? It was starting and I'm realizing people are listening and not watching, but like it started heavy on the performance and less. On the genuine and it just slowly sort of transition to more genuine and less performance. Um, I don't, I don't time time and like commitment to learning and honestly, thank the sweet baby Jesus. I had so many people who were connected to me genuinely and who happened to be black women who would say. Who would ask me questions who would say okay sure that's all that's all good and great and all that kind of stuff But what about this right? The first person that comes to mind is dr. Pam Collins who I would just kiss her feet as she walks like she just is is the kind of person who like Really made an intentional connection with me years and years and years ago And it's continued to show up and has continued to ask me the hard questions And this is pre Keisha, right? Like Like she was a person that was like, let me come into the room, Charette. Let's, let's talk about this. And it was so like gentle with me when I didn't deserve it. And that is kind of the other thing that I think is really important to underscore is that another, um, performance sentence, I guess a performance concept was that Black people don't need to be gentle with you. Like you don't, You don't, like, we don't, Black people don't need to take care of white people's feelings. And that was actually really helpful. Because I think the, the, the, It starts off as performance and it becomes genuine when I'm able to repeat these things. And then it becomes true and clear and understood and it connects. But it, it takes me a while, right? And so like when I started to learn like, okay, people don't owe me any favors. Nobody does. But especially Black women don't owe me any favors. They don't need to coddle me. It's not their job to take care of my emotions. So that when situations like when you called me in, it felt less threatening. Yeah. Right. So I didn't have conversations like we revisited, we've revisited, um, old conversations or old situations where it doesn't necessarily feel threatening, but you're like, I don't know how to respond to that. Right. And so you kind of, um, shut down until I'm like, yo, what, where'd you go? How can I keep you engaged in the conversation that for whatever reason we're revisiting this conversation? How can I keep you engaged in a conversation that has happened, you know, over and over again, over some time? You know, what do you say then? It's like a kind of recalling in, like, maybe I haven't fully processed this and I'm not like showing it to you, uh, in order to bash you, but like, I'm just processing it. Uh, and I need you to come into the room. And we've had experiences where you're like, shut down. Absolutely. So, what do you say to that? Oh, God. I mean, I think the shutdown happens when I'm trying to protect my ego. Yeah. Right? Like, I'm in, in my head, I'm negotiating, right? I'm fighting for my racism. I'm like, how can this be true while also not meaning that I'm a bad person? Yes. Right. And there's a lot of layers and we talked about this. And, and I think for me, and I don't know if other white women feel the same way, but like in the, when we really started to connect, like through the beginning of the pandemic and all of that, I didn't necessarily believe that I deserve to have your friendship. And I sort of expected you to be like. I don't have time for this nonsense. Like you are problematic. Go away from me. Right? Like I expected to get rejected. And so when I would, you know, fuck some shit up and say some things and you would be like, Hey, can we talk about that? I'm like, here it is. Here's where I'm expecting this abandoned to happen. Well, that's good. Right. And then I think, no, you go, no, no, no, no. I want you to finish it. I forgot. I think, I think there's this. There's this perpetual experience of abandonment that I feel from white people. Pay attention to that, because I'm just, this Keisha talking about Keisha. But I think I'm always... Waiting for the other shoe to drop like you're you look like you're in but you're not really and so for me to think that you're in sets me up for failure. So, like you're worrying about being abandonment because abandoned because you're in and I'm worried about finding out that I thought you were anywhere. But I will say. In our friendship, you've made all these other deposits, right? Like you made all these other deposits and we've had these conversations even, you know, we repaired. And then, then I come to you and say, Hey, uh, what, what's happening here? Like, why are you not engaging with me on this? Uh, and you come back, right? You come right into the room, you sit down and I, that's why, why our friendship works because. You know, I invite you into the room and you come in right and I think we also Logan cute But it's it's a good invitation if I invite you is You, it, it says the onus is on you to walk through the door to, to sit with me or to even sit with the podcast and have these conversations because it's difficult and nobody, it's so difficult and lots of people aren't doing that. Lots of people aren't inviting you into the room. But I also think that what needs to be really clear is that while I'm walking into the room, I am literally ready to vomit. Yes. Good. Right? Because for me, again, protecting my ego, me walking into the room is going to be a conversation of how I'm a quote unquote bad person. And so I have to do a lot of mental energy to say There's other options between bad and good. You're just white. Like it's like Keisha really wants to be friends with you. You really want to be friends with Keisha. This feels scary, but a lion is not attacking you. Like I have to give myself a lot of like pep talking, you know, and it's gotten easier, but like in the beginning, it was really hard because we had, we had a lot of like, what the fuck? Like some like miscommunications. And we had to have a lot of really hard conversations. Now it's so much easier because of the deposits. And I think maybe that's, that goes back to the, the, the transition between more performative to more genuine is because I've made a lot of deposits into the work and I can see the change. Like I can see the benefit of it. Yeah. Right. Like I can see how. how the learning is benefiting me. And, and like, I, I think that's really important to name because why people, people, but why people aren't going to do anything that doesn't directly benefit them. And so in the process, Let me ask you this question though. It makes me think about, so which way is the fight for the racism? It's like, if I'm doing this thing, that means I'm bad. Is not doing this thing, I think my concern is that the fight to not be bad, it feels like you're labeling an anti racist thing as bad. Or labeling the workers. But again, I, I want to make the connection here because like, like you see the discomfort between, Oh man, I'm, I'm, I'm not bad or, or that makes me bad. And you see how there's such a fight for the discomfort, or if I call you in or I call you out, there is such a experience of rejection and there's all these bad labels to it, but like, how do we reframe it so that. You can stay, actually be in a fight and be a genuine and authentic ally. So I think it's not that the anti racist process is bad. It's that the truth is bad. So like, if I'm going through the anti racist process, okay. The fact is, when I'm uncovering this truth about myself, that gets labeled as bad. The truth is bad. The truth is, I am racist, I'm fucking problematic, I'm misogynist, I'm all of these things. The truth is bad, and then if I don't have the tools and strategies to actually address it yet, then I just have to sit with the bad. But like, white people understand that to be anti racist is good, in theory. But I don't think that enough white people understand that to actually be anti racist means that you have to uncover this truth. It's going to feel like you're bad, but there are more options than just good and bad. Yeah. Okay. And I also think, I also think that oftentimes when white people start the journey of anti racism, we have, we don't have coping strategies, we don't have, like, response strategies. Like, okay, when I uncover this thing that feels like, you know, I'm a terrible person, then what? What do I do next? Like, there's not enough of those strategies that we No, it feels like we're just ripping off this band aid and we're having to look at this very deep gash in our, in this wound that we have, and we don't have the medicine, we don't have the like, how am I going to take care of this next? Like, we don't have that. So then the result is, let me just keep this band aid on because I don't want to see the wound. But anti racism is fighting. The truth is, is changing the truth, essentially. So the truth is historically, I have generally generational trauma from being a black person in America that dates back to slavery and even back to, uh, pre slavery, or like whatever, I have been passed down through generations. And likewise, white people in this country have also been passing down this history of oppression and racism and misogyny and all these, uh, systems of oppression. So when you come to the truth and you realize that, man, I've been an active participant in this bad system, You have these negative feelings, this kind of like gross, and then you say, I'm not willing to sit with that because it doesn't feel good. That's part of the fight for your racism, if you're not willing to sit through the discomfort. If you're not willing to sit through the discomfort and name the things, and then kind of change your mind, right? Like, through the process, if you're not willing to do that, that's a fight for the racism. Even just accepting the feelings of bad, of the truth. it's part of fighting against racism. Uh, yes. And all the other systems of, of oppression. So yeah, I just wanna say that. Yeah, that's a, and this is why you've got a podcast because you're able to make this so accessible,. Well, I mean, I'm hoping so, Yeah, that's exactly, that's exactly what it's, I actually wanna, I. episode series thing called see now you're on the podcast and shout out to my good good girlfriend who was in my dms because now she's on the podcast, but also there's the, uh, uh, the scenario that I use where the white deaf person says color people, people of color that the interpreter is like, Hey, which one do you mean? And, um, the interpreter. chooses because the Deaf person says the same difference doesn't mean any, any difference, right? And so from that conversation, there was lots and lots of conversations in the comments. There was lots of conversations in my DMs. There's lots of conversations about how you respond to that. What is cultural mediation? And I was initially just going to leave it, right? Like I, I didn't want, I want it to be a thought provoking question where you sit with it and hopefully you come to the right place. But well, listen, white people can't be trusted. You've got to get it. White people cannot be trusted. But this is one of the things that I saw that I thought was really interesting is I heard things like people say, I'm not letting that come through my body. Right. I heard her people say, but hold on. What was their intention? Right. Like as a human without an interpreter and like, and I, and I've heard the argument that this is a deaf privilege to have an interpreter who can interpret your intention and therefore reduce the impact of not knowing the difference. And I'm, and you said, when we were talking about, you said, this is a matter of ego is we, our ego shows up in this process and it influences the decisions that we make. That aren't really effective for the Deaf person who needs to understand that there is a difference. Right? And I think, I don't, this is not cookie cutter, not one size fits all, so I won't say that, but they need to, he, sir, you need to know. It's a big difference. And as the interpreter, I don't have anybody mediating for me that you just said to me, the interpreter. there's same difference. I don't have anybody doing that. And so, and it was everybody. It was black, brown, blue, purple. Everybody kind of said the same thing who were on this side of cultural mediations. Why would we say the thing that causes the most harm if we know that it's going to cause that kind of harm? And I just want you to talk about the ego piece of that. Ugh. So I also want to just be really transparent and say like, I was in that camp too. Yeah. Like, until, until we talked about it, I was like, why? Why would we cause harm? Because we talked about, you talked about it in the Inward Conversation episode. Like, why would we put that out there knowing how much trauma comes with that word? And so I was in that camp too, of like, I'm not going to do that. But then, um, I think after a lot of conversation and a lot of thought, like really what I'm saying. is I don't believe that this person can handle what's being said, right? And so I'm, I'm a parent. I got a three year old and I don't. expose her to things that are like super traumatic, right? Like I'm not going to let her watch some like very violent show and, and I believe that that's a good decision to, to, to have as a parent, right? But we aren't interpreting for three year olds. We're interpreting for grown ass adults. Yeah. And if we're talking about how black and brown people use information that they get to decide who's safe and who's not, how are we causing harm by sanitizing that message? I am not saying that we should interpret the n word as white people. But I do think it is important to make sure that that person knows that that word was said without directly saying the word, right? And so, so in that, like, how do we, and this goes to the anti autist ally, right? Like, I think that I'm being a good interpreter because I'm sanitizing the message. I am quote unquote protecting this person like I would protect my three year old daughter. And that, in its core, is patronizing. Yeah, it's helper model. Yeah. It's helper model. Right. And like, I just want to be clear, like literally a couple of weeks ago, I felt differently, but I, I think that there's more options here. You're more just do it. Do I say it or do I not say it? I don't think it's as clear as that. Yeah, I think I think one of the things that we talk about and and I don't know the scenario or the situation specifically, like I really wasn't there. But I think there are things that we talk about where we Make the decisions that we make. And we're like, well, he doesn't know. And if there's no time to tell him, then you've made a decision against his will. Right. You didn't allow him that incidental learning that that's going to happen as a result of saying something that, that really does have a difference and it does have an impact. And now you're experiencing the consequences of a thing that you said of a, of, of a fund of knowledge issue. Right. Like you don't have this fund of knowledge, but guess what you, you learned today. Right? You learn today. And I think we feel like I don't want to cause harm to deaf people. Like, that's not, that's not why I got into this field to be like, yep, you say a thing that is harmful. I'm going to say it. And then the follow that is going to be where you are. If I don't have the space and the time to kind of say, Hey, by the way, uh, this is saying this specific sentence in English, it's going to be harmful. Uh, and saying this one is going to be better, better. But I also want to say that. It wasn't clear. The English of the interpretation wasn't clear at all. Right. Did he mean colored people? Did he mean colorful people? Did he mean people of color? Mm-hmm., it's just not clear. And both of these options, even people of color, is still hard. Why the hell are you saying that? Mm-hmm., even in that context, right? Even in that context, even if even people of color is better. But why the hell are you saying that? I'm gonna, my, the, my hackles are gonna rise. Right? Like, yeah, I'm going to feel really uncomfortable with a decision that you made. But I think the issue that what we're talking about is fighting for, in this sense, your autism. In the sense that you are making a decision to not allow them to cause the harm that they are causing is oppression. Right. And, and, and I'm, I'm, and I'm not saying holistically, so I'm saying, think about the decisions that you make. And if your ego, right, I'm not going to say this because it's not coming through my body. I'm not going to say this because I don't, because I understand their impacts. And I don't know your, our job is not about, it's not us. It's not us. It's, it's, You know, and so like our ego plays a big role in how we make the decisions that we make and we got to check our egos at the door, like, that's not, I also just want to bring in maybe the opposite perspective, right? So we talked about on one extreme where we're the helper model. And we're sanitizing the message, but we could also be on the other end of the spectrum where we're the conduit model. And we're just saying like, all right, so you learn, you know what I mean? Like this is, this is, you go learn and this is the situation, but like, there's also other options here. It's not just a binary, right? We can, and I, I, I work in partnership. With the people that I interpret with. Yeah. Right. And I like, so I can think of many situations where I'm prepping with a deaf person who's doing a presentation and they have said something that is a, a very common, uh, song lyric. And I'm like, FYI. And I wish I could think of the exact song lyric, song lyric, but this person was telling a story and they said something like, I can't even remember what the song lyric was. Let's pretend like it's. I don't know. I can't remember what it was, but it was something like that. The rhythm is going to get you stop in the name of love. Something that was like really classic and it made sense. Like they were not meaning it in that way. Right. They were just saying like, this is part of my story. And so, because I worked in partnership with them, I said, Hey, you need to know that if I say this sentence in English, people's brains are going to go to the song lyric, and this moment is not funny. And so this song is going to make people laugh and it's going to sound like a clash. I just want you to know that you still want me to say this in English, right? So there's other options. So like if this interpreter had an opportunity to ask, do you mean colored people or people of color and their responses? Same thing. Why can't we, as interpreters go for hearing people in English, it means something very different. Yeah. Why can't we say that? I think we could, I, I think maybe that was the follow up question. I think maybe he was experiencing some pressure from that, uh, from just the setting, right. Um, and that it was, uh, uh, a presentation, but at the same time, when the fallout happened, which I don't, don't include, cause I didn't create a follow up to it. Um, the interpreter in the comments of that Facebook post says that when the shit hit the fan, he stands up and he says, I said colored people. I said color people. They probably heard colored people. Sure. Yeah. Right. This is what he said. And the deaf person says, Same thing, stop obsess, same, same, stop obsess, right? And so it really is probably a fund of knowledge issue. Um, that probably could have helped with this, you know, Hey, there's this thing, but I don't know. I also don't know. Um, I don't know how we should think about the ways that we, I, I think there are too many comments. Here's what I'll say is there are too many comments where people are like, we interpret the intent. And I think sometimes that's true. I think it really is true sometimes, what do they say? What did they mean to say? And sometimes their impact is what their impact is, you know? I mean, this guy meant to say colored people. It's clear because of a fund of knowledge issue. Fund of knowledge issue, yeah. The intent was very clear. If the interpreter asked, do you mean this or this, and they said same thing, no difference, stop obsess, like to me, it's a fund of knowledge issue, which I don't necessarily think that interpreters hold the responsibility. Yes, we don't hold the responsibility for that. I also don't think it is our responsibility or our job to abdicate from that responsibility either. I agree. I think they're somewhere in the middle, right? It depends on, so like the reason why I gave the feedback to this presenter is because we have worked together for years. We have a relationship, right? This person trusts me to make sure that they are thinking about things that they just don't have access to because they don't hear, right? They don't know what the song lyric is. And right. So I share that information. They were like, Oh, gross. Yeah. I don't want to do that. Let's say this instead. Right. But like that really comes with deposits. I think that's That's also true. There was another person in my DMS who provided a great story. Uh, and she talked about how those kinds of kind of miscommunications would show up all the time. And so she would say, Hey, this is, this is the impact your message is going to have, um, as a hearing person, they may not understand what you mean. And that was regular, but when you have relationship, like it really does open a door to allow for more conversation. And, um, I think there, I still think there's a fine line between us being audits through this kind of helper model or poor Deaf people they don't know, poor, right? Like, let me sanitize the shit out of this message. Ooh, let me prevent the impact. Ooh, you said something racist and it is blatantly and overtly racist. And let me not say that thing, right? I think this is an example. Where it's, it's blurry, but people who, who really stand by sanitizing the message, they'd sanitize the shit out of the message if it was not blurry. Right. Yeah. They sanitize the shit out of that message. If it was clear as day that the statement was racist, it's not coming through my body. Right. And so where is the line? And how do we remove our egos from this space to fight for our autism? Because it's good. Sanitizing and messing is good, or fighting for our racism because, you know, I'm a good white person. Like, how do we get out of that space? You know, I think this is a, this is a conversation that you and I have actually had multiple times when we have teamed together. There has been several situations that like you're, you're, you're just, your comment that you just made, made me think of is like when we were doing, we've done some extended jobs together and you have been like, Sherrette, your CODA is showing, right? Like you are showing up in a real big way, trying to take care of this whole situation when sometimes you just not need to let. people be people. And I have had a really hard time with that. So I think to answer that question of like, how do you get your ego out of the way? You also have to acknowledge the identity that you're bringing into the situation. Because I'm a white woman, because I'm a CODA, I show up with a lot of deposits already. Even if I've never met the deaf person, if they are deaf, if they Are white, they're going to look at me and they're going to say she's coming with some deposits. I can see the fluency. I can see that she understands me. She's going to get to do a lot more than Keisha's going to get to. Right? So then that allows me to do things like negotiate and hey and FYI and like, or even make the mistakes. Like in the situation that that person gave you, that interpreter was black, right? So it became really easy to blame that interpreter in a way that I think interpreters get scapegoated a lot. I do. I've felt that. I've seen it. I get it. But it's real easy to make a Black interpreter the, the culprit, the bad guy in the story. Yeah, I think so. I don't know. Well, I love, I love what you say. It's like, I understand your identity as a black person who has experienced depression and white people, white people laying on a regular basis. You being deaf doesn't absolve you from being white, right? Like you saying a racist thing and not realizing that it's racist. It's just typical white people behavior. And so, right. I'm coming with my own identity, my own experiences. And I'm like, yeah. You said it, so this is the thing and that is coming through that. And right. Like, how do we, in terms of race, we have to check that, but also in terms of, of hearing status, um, and you know, you have deaf, right? Like as a CODA, so like you have a different, we have these different lenses that really do show up in a space that show up in that space. And it, it lays to the decisions that we make. And I don't think that's bad. I think it's human. It's that. And, yeah. And. I think we're all having to do the labor of understanding the decisions that we make. Um, my advisor says, Keisha, just have an answer. Have a bonafide answer, right? Like, if you're going to do, approach your research in this way, you gotta have an answer. As to why you did it. Be able to explain that. And so I, I think as long as we are in the process of asking ourselves a question, 'cause you're not gonna always have akeisha, uh, you're not gonna always have a charette who's asking you these questions and challenging in the way that you're thinking about a thing. You gotta do that work, right? Like, you have to ask yourself the question of why did I make the decision that I made? And I think that's really hard decision. I think that's a really hard. Thing to take on the responsibility of because I also think because of my identity and because of your identity We're going to go into a situation and we're going to see And understand the impact in a very different way, right? So like now I may be able to understand the difference of colored people versus people of color But charrette circa 10 years ago I wouldn't be able to, to really understand the layers there and I may choose to sanitize the message because I don't understand what's necessary in that moment, whereas you're going to come in and you're going to be like, Oh no, you know what I see important immediately. I see the Montgomery bus boycott. I see Jim Crow South. I see colored fountains versus white fountains, right? Like I, that's what I see. Right. So it triggers not just this trauma, but this imagery and, and, and, you know, I, I really have to address that. I really addressed this in the last episode where I talk about how the, how the one interpreter says colored skin, right. He's talking about. Who, this is the interpreter who's interpreting for Bucky and he's talking about melanated skin, but he says this thing that really is kind of up there with the edge. Yeah, it is, it is, it's close, but it tells me about your, your fund of knowledge. It tells you me about who you interact with. It tells me that kind of thing. And so if I, you, you come in, so that's, you have your experience of what happens with you. And that's what happens with me when I hear colored. And that's huge at that huge, which is why he got the response. He got people like, I don't care what you got to say. Climate. Nothing. I have, I have no interest in sitting here any longer because you problematic. Right, right, right. And I can hear white thoughts. as they listen to this, because this is where it becomes uncomfortable because we're uncovering truth, right? So here's, here's where, where I think white people's thoughts are going is, okay, wow, so the possible truth that we're uncovering right now is I'm going to go into these jobs and I'm not going to know shit about how to discern What's problematic? What's not? How do I clarify? Do I clarify? Do I let them just shit the bed? What do I do? And then usually, it's one of two options in my experience, shut down our anchor, right? Keisha doesn't know, Keisha and Charette doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about, or I might as well just not be an interpreter. Yep, yep. Well, I might as well just not, you know, let me just abandon ship. Let me go be an accountant or something like that. Right? Like that's, that's where I can hear people's thoughts. And if you are having that thought, I would suggest that this is an indication that you are starting your journey and you should just keep going. If you are having an emotional response right now, that is telling you something. Your emotional response is a flag. It's like, Hey friend, this is an area that you really need to attend to. Yeah. You don't have enough strategies here. Keep working. We talked about this, right. And we're talking, we're talking about the rejection and that feeling of rejection. But we also talked about the difference between performance and authentic allyship and really one of the big differences sitting with a discomfort and kind of saying the truth. The truth might be bad, but like, I'm okay to be in the process of changing the truth about just in, in my every day. Right. And you know, like you're going to be uncomfortable and good. Right. I love it. I love it. Sit with it, sit with it and, um, fight through it and find good people that you can have this conversation with, right. Where you can debrief and unpack the ways that you are uncomfortable and. You know, and more importantly, like you're, you're going to be okay, you're going to be okay. Your brain thinks that a lion is chasing you and it's not true. Your brain is lying to you. It does it all the time, all damn day. But that's all, that's, That's my podcast. I love it. I love it. That's the stuff that I talk about. Your brain lies to you. How do you take control of your emotions and your thoughts to get clear on what's really happening right now? Yeah. You're going to be all right. You're gonna be all right. You're gonna be all right. So let's stop fighting for racism and our autism and let's start asking ourselves the hard questions. And staying with the discomfort. And sometimes it's just pain. It is, it's far beyond discomfort. It is pain. Like, shit, I have caused harm. Literal. Yes. So, like, how do we stay in that? Thank you for coming, Fran. I appreciate you. Anytime. I enjoy you. I'm going to need you to, to, to start sharing your content with non coders so that we can, we can plug you. Look, I know, I know. We'll talk about it. I know. We'll talk about it. I know. I love the coders though. So shout y'all out. Shout out to the coders. She got stuff for y'all. I do. I got stuff for the coders. Come, come talk to me. Come in my room. Yeah. Go into her room. Yes. Go into her room. All right, y'all. We'll see you next time.