Ep 28: BOTH a lot to learn AND something to contribute

April and Tracie continue to flesh out some of the key obstacles from their flip the script resource with the help of a question from a listener. One of the limiting beliefs that shows up in racial justice work is the sense that you've learned a lot, but not enough to take action. April and Tracie dig into this notion and give some suggestions for ways to productively hold the both / and of having a lot to learn AND having being able to humbly and meaningfully contribute.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:
April and Tracie's "Flip the Script" Resource is available here.

Find Episode S2E3 here and some reflection questions about it here.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson is the inaugural director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for Reconstructing Judaism.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel sent a telegram to President Kennedy asking him to declare a "state of moral emergency" because of racism and its effects in the U.S.

Sign up for access to our free three-video offering here. 

Transcript

0:01

- [Tracie] What do you do when you've learned a lot but it doesn't feel like it's enough, to take action. The answer here as is often the case, is both / and.- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie A weekly show, hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker In a complex world, change takes courage. Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- [April] Okay. So I'm excited to dive into this one, it's come up a lot in my work recently, which is why I... as we were crafting some of these talking points and themes for our episodes and for our "flip this script" resource, this is something that's come up a lot and it's come up before too, but it it's, I've had a revelation, around it recently.- Awesome.- Right? So I've heard this over a number of years of people... And to me, in some ways it's sort of tied to the fear making, it's kind of like a slightly elevated version of your, or like a different, and either an avoidant or arguably elev or a fancier version of I'm afraid, I'm nervous and afraid of making a mistake. It's a way of, it's like an intellectualized version of that lie. I still haven't quite learned enough to take action yet, right? And so I'm excited to dive into this one and I think it could be a robust conversation or actually relatively concise.- Yeah.- And right before we started recording Tracie, you pointed out, I shared with Tracie earlier in the day that we got a call a call. We had a submission from someone recently in response to a prior episode. I don't know if you remember which episode it was- Yeah it Was season two, episode three flip the script on urgent action.- So on...Do y'all hear Tracie is so on-point. Yes, exactly, yes, that one. And we got a question. So I'm from a lovely listener. So, and we ask y'all in the form that you fill out if you want to be named in this person opted not to be named they wanted to get their question answered. But so that's why we're not giving them a shout out. If you would like a shout out and we select your question, we will happily give you a shout out but this person wants to do more discreet but also want their questions answered. So, hopefully we can weave that in at some point, but first I want to wait a moment and just kind of tackle this first. I've been talking a lot in the last couple episodes so I don't know if you want to start us off Tracie.- Yeah, sure. So I think the issue that we want to kind of unpack is sort of that posture that position where folks, especially white folks might say or think, "You know what? I've done some learning, I definitely know more than I used to but I still don't know enough to take action. I'm not ready."- I wanna make a plug here really quickly but I think that's also true in a different sort of way, but with a slightly different valence from a number of people of the global majority. Where they might actually be really quite smart and informed, but they're like, I don't have a degree or training officially in DEI work. And I don't want to mess things up for the other leaders but they do have things to give. So I think this is something that slightly in different ways cuts across multiple groups.- Yeah, Yeah. And I think the reason I was thinking of pairing our listeners question about flip the script on our origin action episode is because it's the flip the script on urgent action. We talKed about sort of feeling like, I wanna take action right away. And we advised folks to take a deep breath and really kind of understand the issue, understand more about the issue and their own impulses. And what needs they're feeling internally before they take action. So our listeners question was like, yeah but what if there are urgent social justice issues, speaking specifically about the current moment, for instance eviction protections or equitable access to the vaccine? Like, do I have to, I don't have to wait on that, right? I mean, that was sort of those, I'm paraphrasing her question. So I feel like these are sort of they're all swirling together about sort of appropriate action, given knowledge levels and other things. So, and I think all of this stuff is, it's all constellations of this, of some of the same things but I think I'm going to start our unpacking of this with a reminder, to follow the lead. To follow the lead of those who are- That's what I was thinking.- Yeah, follow the lead of those who are closest to the issue and therefore, closest to the solution. I heard it phrased that way recently, I love that. I think we often talk about those most impacted, which is absolutely true, but I love reframing it as being closer to the solution or I think the problem with urgent action, is when, especially white folks swoop in like mighty mouse. Here I come to save the day. When they don't fully understand what it is that they're reacting to. And they haven't asked- Yes, They don't understand, yes.- They've haven't asked. The folks who they're saving. I'm putting air quotes around that, for those of you listening. How or even if saving is appropriate.- So...- it's often not.- Right, right. Spoiler alert, you're always with the spoiler alert.- Pro tip.(laughs loudly)- Yeah, so I that's what I want to offer to our listener who asked the question.- Can I actually read the full question? Do you mind?- Do it- Coz I think it's great and I wanna give props to people who are reaching out and I think it will help fill it in the potential blanks for other folks. So this person wrote, I've listened to Jews Talk Racial Justice, season two, episode three flip the script on urgent action. And I think, I understand the concept of not rushing into action. However, I'm confused. I don't think you mean that we should wait to address all social justice issues. Example current issues like eviction protection, equitable access to the COVID vaccine. Until we've fully learned about explored and continue as a lifelong process, exploring our internal racism as Jews, as white Jews excuse me. I would very, I would be very interested in hearing what you think about this question, thank you. It was very thoughtful question. So shout out to you awesome person.(laughs gently) From North Carolina. So, which is my birth state. I will claim that, but so sorry, you were, so you were saying Tracie.- No, I think I pretty much finished my thought that on that question and on the reverse of it. So I- So what was your answer? Cause I don't know if I fully- Follow the lead- My answer is follow the lead. Follow the lead of those directly affected, who are closest to the solution. That means when we're talking about racial justice, issues that means follow the lead of black indigenous and other people of color, in a nutshell- Shout out to Latino and Asian heritage folks, especially leaders, Yay! Progressive social justice leaders, Wooh! Okay, so yeah, I mean, basically I think this is a really interesting question and it shows up in my work often. It shows up in my work as the racial justice advisor of the Jewish social justice round table. And it shows up in my work as the executive director of Joyous Justice with some of our clients, particularly some of our organizational clients around them taking time to learn different things and beginning to see how much they need to learn. And that's the thing, I think actually in some ways it's because there's not, I can't, it's hard for us to give you a hard and fast rule here but to give you a sense of things. If you feel daunted by all the things you still don't yet know, I think you're getting ready to be able to take action because you understand that there's a lot you don't know.- Right.- The problem with a number of folks taking urgent action is they say, Oh! I have this specific voice in mind, I don't know why. Wow! There's problems with racism, I know what to do.- Right, maybe not- I'm going to go, I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna go in and out. I learned about this in school, no you didn't. And I have a sense of from the news that's not a really great source for education about racial justice. So I'm just going to go off of what is commonly available in subtext our still quite racist society and dive in. That's what we want you to avoid, the point at which, and specifically around broader themes of racial justice. So in general, like with specifically with this person asked about, things around the COVID vaccine or eviction rates. I think working with groups who are led by the people, who are most directly impacted and or ally groups who have a track record of being phenomenal and people who in on their website or in community space. This partially takes some time. Their allies say, "We love those folks. We show up for them. They show up for us, we're in it together." You'll hear things like this, from groups around the country. I want to name one, but there are many. So I don't want to pick favorites. So there are groups who are earnestly doing this work and you can, you don't have to know everything yet because you're working in alignment. And in solidarity with communities that are directly impacted and with their allies who have taken the time to get incredibly informed about this and mobilize their community such as yourself. So no, absolutely, I love your question because no, you don't need to know everything. And that is actually a trick. What I've learned, what I can share with some of my current organizational clients right now is that, you're going to be feeling uncertain in this likely for a number of years but you can still be taking action and doing effective work so long as you are aware that this is a long-term journey and you're not diluted into thinking that this is going to be solved by a five point checklist or even a 20 point checklist that both the challenge itself as adaptive as well as the adaptive challenges of where your specific community is and what those needs are. Each community, many communities are relatively similar in a lot of ways, but the specific concerns and textures that the ways that racism and people's healing process around racism manifests can be a little bit different. And it's important that we are fully present with our communities and leading them in ways that work for us in our context. That ideally are also in alignment with broader racial justice movements, right? So the point what I'm trying to get here, is that, once you understand you need to do your work and that you need to be in relationship. Whether personally or through community organizations that's a good place to start. And then ideally it can extend to your personal life beyond organizing with social justice groups that you work, that you are in accountable relationship to people who are directly impacted. And then from that place, you're taking action to recognize that at first lives within you and that part of your work, is working on eradicating internalized racism whether you are a person of color or internalized racist racial oppression patterns, if you're a white person once you begin to understand that they're there, they've already lost some power. You still need to do more work to work on it. But the fact that you have that awareness, once you have the awareness there and you've started to develop some analysis and you're continuing on that and you've, basically it's part of what we're talking about is similar to Barbara Love's model around liberatory consciousness, around you have awareness you've started to develop analysis and you are accountable and you've mean you've drawn some lines in your mind of accountability. Of these are some of the folks to whom I am accountable. I'm accountable to these movement elders. It can even be some authors that you've read. I'm accountable to what bell hooks teaches.- Right.- I'm accountable to this. And I'm also accountable to this leader in my community. I am accountable to this Black Lives Matter leader or I am accountable to this NAACP leader. I'm naming different politics and some of what I'm saying for folks who are in this, may lean one way or another, I'm not going to necessarily say, dictate which ones but there are various people. This Jewish leader of color has been, is leading in my movement and comes to this work with years of experience, say as a Rabbi. Shout out to Rabbi, Sandra Lawson, Mazel tov. Right, that like, so you can have both elders in the work more broadly. You can look, you can be accountable to Rabbi Heschel I would encourage you to go back and read in depth not just the arguably whitewashed quotes or the simplified lollipop quotes but what he actually said, the the full statement he said to president Kennedy, the full statement he said, when he was critiquing the Jewish community and saying, "Yes they got out of Mitzrayim. They got out of Egypt.""But they're getting the same food every day"and they have other needs."Just because they got the right to vote,"they will also deserve"and want a fair wage and safe housing," right? He was incredibly progressive and brave in ways that are still arguably agitational to a lot of mainstream institutions today. So anyway, so that model of the three A's of awareness analysis and accountability can be very helpful. And then the next stage, and then the that next stage is action. And those there things that it's sort of like a loop like they can always be continuing to develop but you have the core framework. Once you have that core framework, where you have a core element of humility and awareness of some places where you need to work and awareness that there are still things that you're not yet aware that you know you need to learn. So that when you encounter something you're not just going to dismiss a person of color or do some other thing that you probably shouldn't ever do but you might to be able to approach a moment and when something comes up, you say,"Oh! Yeah, I know I am still learning, okay, right?" And you can be a responsible, person in this work and so I've mostly been defaulting to talk to white folks. And I noticed that. So I'm not crazy about that, right? But I often that's often who I'm working with in part because that's where some resources are- Some work needs to be done too.- But I've also working, but I also in terms of my coaching and mentorship and organizing of Jews of color for the first seven years of my career and the coaching I'm doing now, these similar themes come up as well. It can come up for us specifically at times around, a little bit of imposter syndrome and delivering value to communities and not feeling like we do deserve to ask for money, for compensation. You deserve to ask for compensation if you are delivering a value, right? There are some folks I got just because I'm like this man... Just because somebody is any identity, It doesn't mean that they're a good spokesperson for something, that's not what I'm saying. But if you are someone who has been in a community for a long time and has been on a board or is leading in some way, and then you are called upon from your leadership position in that context or because of another context to lead. I hope that you will consider it and also, especially if you're someone with a targeted identity in any number of ways but especially if you're person of the global majority, we use person of color and personal of the global majority interchangeably.- I think you were getting at compensation.- Yeah, well, no, it was moving on a little bit to like a related thing around. Oh right, where I was going. So where I was going is to say, especially for my beloved Jews of the global majority, Jews of color, global majority Jews Latino LatinX Jews, Black Jews, Asian heritage Jews, Chinese Jews, Japanese Jews, Vietnamese, you get the point, okay. So that more and more, I really want to encourage us to continue to reach for support, right? Like we're going to be officially announcing it soon but we've quietly started our Ko'ach Fellowship for 10 Jewish leaders of color and a big part of why I started that program is to support that...we are...a number of us......a lot of us are often isolated for reasons that we talked about in our last episode. And so it's incredibly helpful. And in some ways it's a little bit wise to be reticent to take action. So I want to note for folks who, part of it can be in it's extreme. It can be cowardice and at its best and there's a middle ground and then it's best, it's mindful. And so it's good to be mindful. And, what I would emphasize is that if it's slows you down enough to notice that you're a little bit afraid of there's certain things you don't know, as has already been said that's a sign to reach for community and also possibly to reach for just another partner, right? Essentially a havruta, or someone like someone who you can do like an activism or a leadership havruta someone you can reach to and go on this journey together. So you're not alone and you get to have each other's back and have support and ideally the support of a bigger community. But if not that at least one other person. So those are some of my thoughts.- I just want to wrap us up with two things and then a plug. So the two things are both/and. I think that.- Both/and.- Could be the unofficial.- My favorite- Title of this podcast. But I think in particular on this question of I have a lot to learn and I can take action. Yes. Both are true, I know both are true for me. And the other piece is since I brought mighty mouse into the conversation, I'm going to circle back to our cartoon superhero mouse and say the mighty mouse impulse actually suggests I know what's wrong with this picture. It's that they're not like me. Those people are not like me. So I'm going to go make them more like me and everything will be okay. That's the problem- It's getting deeper.- That's a problematic- All right Tracie.- Impulse and so if you have learned enough if you have already learned enough I'm talking to white folks right now. But if you've already learned enough to know that mighty mouse impulse is not okay that we need to replace it, that we need to work on that particular impulse to make everyone like you, then you have also learned enough to follow to be accountable, to whether you're accountable. Actually, it's not a whether, it's not an either or it's a both / and. Accountable to principals and to people. Then you can also hold the both / and of a lot to learn and action. What do you have to say to that April?- I love it, I love that. I think that's so profound because the thing is we're not the same actually. And maybe many people think that we are. So that's going to be like upsetting. Yes, fundamentally. Yes, we are all human. I can go on a whole extra 30 minutes about this. I love this, I love that thread that you brought in. So much so that I hope people actually heard it cause I got so excited. I hope I didn't overly interrupt you. So I apologize, so good though. Oh my gosh, right? Yeah, But like the thing is because people and in part because of segregation this is something that's especially for white folks but occasionally for people of color too, we have missed signals and we think certain things are universal. Like growing up, mostly around people like us or people who might be... I don't like the word, I don't like using the word minority who might be an outlier in a community but they still had to often at times assimilate into that community, which in some ways both strengthen their identity as someone who's unique and also is still in that ecosystem. Anyway, you made a great point and I'm tired.- So my final- The point is that it resonates.- I'm gonna wrap us up for the episode with a plug that I'm gonna add to the other episode too. And so I want,- Yeah.- I'm really excited to let all of you listeners know that we actually, April and I are are releasing a free three video offering called Moving Toward Racial Justice. We actually, April I've been thinking about it. We should've called it Moving Joyfully Toward Racial Justice because the joy is an important piece. That we're offering.- Tracie- It's too late, it's too late, but I'm telling you- No its not. We can revise it for the third one- For the third one we will add it. And those you listening,- Yes- you get a sneak peek that we're revising on the fly that you now know that no one else knows, although the content is there. So this three free video, this three offering. Start over, this free three video offering is it's a lot of fun. We had a lot of video- Three free videos offer, three free video offering.- I will put the link to the offering into the show notes for the podcast. And I,- Show notes.- I hope that you will all come join us for this journey. We've had a lot of fun putting it together.- Yes we have. It's so exciting. Yay! Yeah, so I just really love this theme because I think it can have some negativity but I think it's thoughtful and I think it's good, I think it's a good sign that you have some humility. And that to me, not always, but much of the time is indicative, for the most part that you are ready to mindfully enter this work for continually learning and looking for... and being receptive to feedback and continuing to learn as you go. That's all most of us can all do. And I'm excited for your journey ahead.- Thanks for tuning in our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @ElliotHammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit JewsTalkRacialJustice.com where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.