The Joyous Justice Podcast
The Joyous Justice Podcast
Ep. 41: When You Overhear Microaggressions, Pt 2: Responding to a Question
Ep 41 (S3E1): When You Overhear Microaggressions, Pt 2: Responding to a Question
One of our listeners posed an interesting question in response to a previous episode (39/Season 2, Episode 19: When You Overhear Microaggressions) asking, “What are good ways to respond when you hear racist microaggressions in general, not directed at anyone in particular or maybe the target is not around in that moment. I encounter this at work and don’t know how to respond.” April and Tracie share their own experiences and discuss strategies on how to respond.
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 her blog, bmoreincremental.com
Additional Resources:
Listen to Ep 39 (S2:E19): How Overhear Microaggressions here or watch the video version.
Learn more about Imani Chapman.
Read “Changing the World with Light AND Heat” by Itamar Goldminz.
Learn more about Prof. Dolly Chung who created the model for the light and heat approaches to social change.
- [Tracie] One of our listeners posed an interesting question in response to a recent episode.- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice(mellow music) with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable. Oh yeah, April, you were just telling me we got a comment on YouTube from one of our recent episodes and it was-- Yes, that is correct.- Yeah.- A lovely, thoughtful comment from someone named, I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly, Khesed, so shout out to you, Khesed. It might be Khesed, but it has the K-H, I think it's Khesed. Wonderful name, one of my favorite Jewish values around loving, kindness, and compassion. Yes. Shout out to you. And they gave us some feedback, some feedback around how at times addressing different microaggressions has felt challenging because they've gotten different responses and they were comforted by what we shared about the fact that different people have different preferences, specifically people of color or any member of a marginalized group, right,'cause this also extends just also beyond race, but we really focus in on race in this podcast, right, that there may be some core best practices and different circumstances and different individuals might have slightly different expectations. And so it's not necessarily, and so we just get to learn and evolve and broaden our scope and it's not necessarily that what we did was bad but then it might not be the right fit for that specific person. But then, they also asked the question, Tracie, they said, I'm using they because I don't know their pronouns, it may be he, she, or they, and so just playing it safe and saying they, so also, please pardon me if I am misgendering in any way. Okay. So they said, quote,"I'm also wondering, what are good ways to respond when you hear racist microaggressions in general, not directed at anyone in particular, or maybe the target is not around or present in that moment? I encounter this at work and I'm not sure how to respond. Thank you so much." End quote, right, so I thought that this was a really wonderful question, right, because in our first episode in coming back from our May break from sharing new recordings, we, the title is how to, when you overhear microaggressions, but I guess the subtext of that first one could have been, and the person is present.- Right.- The person who is getting targeted by it is present, right, and so now Khesed is asking, but what about when they're not present? And I thought that that was a really great question. And as we were starting to, initially as I was sharing this with you, Tracie, you mentioned that you had some initial thoughts. I'd love to hear them.- Yeah, well this is one of those cases where it is, it's really hard to know what to do, so I really sympathize with Khesed's predicament and it reminds me of, there was a time a couple years ago where there was a person who was very important in my work life, so I didn't work for or with them directly, but they were kind of important to the power structure, how about that? And they would make these jokes that were like, not over the line racist, but sort of flirting with being racist or flirting with the line, and the first time it happened and this person told this joke or made this comment, I was like, I just froze. I mean, it was fight, flight, or freeze, and I froze, and they walked away and I was left standing there thinking, did that really just happen? Did they really just say what I think they just said? Like, I just, you know, I just really froze.- Which is such a natural initial response, so.- Yeah, yeah. And so what I did was actually try to prepare myself for when it happened again, either with this person or with other people, and so I would practice saying out loud,"You know what, that's not funny," you know, if it was a joke, so that I actually had on the tip of my tongue,"That's not funny." Or the other version would be like,"I don't understand, what do you mean?" And that like forcing the person to explain their racist joke(Tracie chuckling) often will sort of make it clear what's happening to them and to you, and then they'll adjust, adjust or take it back or think twice about like, I can't control what that person says outside of my presence, but by doing these things, by sort of saying I don't think that's funny, what do you mean? I don't get it, you know, without sort of saying like, hey, that's racist, which will get the hackles up and kind of just shut down conversation, and sometimes actually just saying like, if the word, the S word, the Yiddish word is used, like I have said,"Please don't use that word in my presence." I just, it's an ugly word. And so just kind of building the boundaries around what is acceptable.- Right, that's really great. Thank you, Tracie, and to be clear for those who aren't in the know, Tracie's referencing the Yiddish word for black, which is essentially a racial, is used as a racial epithet and is used disparagingly, and I appreciate that you didn't say it explicitly, but just in case people were like, what's the Yiddish S word, that's what Tracie was referencing, to provide a little bit more context, and if you're still not fully clear, if it doesn't ring a bell for you, then you could look it up yourself online. Yeah, I mean, I have a similar phrase in my back pocket that I learned from a teacher who I think learned from another teacher. I often like to cite my sources. I don't know the source of this, so if anyone does, feel free to write in our comments or, you know, send us a note through our question or insight form or on YouTube as well, but it's a variation of what you just said, Tracie, which is slightly gentler, even gentler than one of the options you gave, which is to say,"I don't understand. What's funny about that?"- Yeah, yeah.- Right, and if you can manage it and either just actually sincerely think that or not sincerely think that but approach it from that way, that's a way that is slightly less, like directly confronts it, but in a slightly gentler way and opens up an opportunity for, and it also takes the steam. So some folks are chuckling, and if you ask that question, then it more gently calls people into account, you know, because what came to mind for me when Khesed asked this question is in responding in any way that is supportive of racial justice, anyone who does that is directly contradicting the oppressive white supremacist racial order, and anytime that happens, there can be consequences. And it is my hope in this work that people make those choices to advance this work because we need it and that we all are mindful and use our best judgment around finding the right ways of calibrating how we respond if we are well positioned and we have lots of institutional support and our position is well funded and there's been work around racial justice, you know. If there is a strong foundation, then we can still ideally be kind but speak more clearly and directly, and for a number of us, if we, in one way or another have a targeted identity or are, you know, don't have powerful stature within the context in which we're working, ideally we still want to be advancing racial justice, but doing so in a way that we're equipped to maintain, and I would just like to re highlight or highlight, not re, but highlight what Tracie said early on that I've found to be so important in this work, that a lot of people don't always think this way, and I want them to, that this work, a core part of racial justice work, is about the long game. It's about continually working on a daily, weekly, and monthly and annual basis to get better at what we're doing and to be kind with ourselves as we come upon new situations and be kind to ourselves if we don't fully know what to do in that moment, but make a very mindful note of it and get more information, just as this, as our wonderful YouTube listener did, right, and that that is forward movement, right? I just really encourage everyone in this work that I think a number of people, particularly white folks, white Jews in this work and white Jewish adjacent folks can be at times overly hard on themselves in a specific moment and take it to mean something that to me is an exaggeration of what it actually means and instead get into the habit of doing what Tracie talked about of taking appropriate action, where you know to take it and being mindful of your positional power and not engage in white saviorism, but be a wonderful ally and resource and co-conspirator whenever you can, and in moments, in new moments, to make a mental note or literally make a note in a notepad you have or wherever you might keep these kinds of questions, a racial justice journal, wherever you might have it, right, to say, okay, I want to, and also specifically send us a question about it. Like, I just encountered this dynamic and normally I would do this thing, but there was this different variable and I wasn't quite sure what to do. And I find that at times, a number of my students and participants in our programs, that it's not universal but it's very common for people to be overly condemning of themselves rather than acknowledge some likely honest disappointment. Like I really wish I knew how to navigate this moment and I just didn't know how to navigate it, and but I do want to know how to navigate this and similar situations in the future, so now I'm going to proactively engage in that. To me, it's kind of similar of taking a more iterative approach rather than a judgemental and punitive approach, right? But more lean into sort of design thinking around we're continually in this ongoing pilot evolving stage, and when something, when something doesn't go right, when there's a glitch, when we fall short of the vision that we have for us in our racial justice leadership, ally ship, co-conspirator ship that we say, ah, this is a place where I can get stronger. I wasn't aware of this or I was and it fell by the wayside, and now I need to prioritize getting this back, because fortunately, it's not like this is getting solved overnight. I do have dreams of this being, of racism being resolved much sooner than lots of people think. I would love to see us make incredible strides in the next 20 to 50 years. Some people think it's going to take multiple lifetimes. I actually think that there are a number of different efforts we could take within my lifetime to strongly and powerfully undermine racism, and I believe that it's going to come through us bringing us as much as we can in each moment and it's a both/and for me of bringing our best each moment and also holding a long view of,(April grunts) didn't get this one right this time, and I'm going to commit to figuring this out, getting some resource and support around it from some of my allies with whom I share my identity or possibly across lines of difference. I think often affinity allies are great for white people and Jews of color as a first go-to to connect with people who share your identity and say, "Here's what I experienced," when so often at times you can get that understanding and also have them in a way that's more comfortable for both you and them, share different resources and insights that they would recommend for you to help you get better as you go.- Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so, so wise and valuable, and I actually would like to like, call myself in in this and like, give an example, because I think sometimes people are listening and they see me interact with you, and I just want to, I want to share so I'm gonna air some dirty laundry of my own. So a couple of years ago, I realized after I was in a meeting of, it was like a DEI, diversity equity inclusion kind of taskforce across multiple Jewish agencies, and after the meeting, I was kind of thinking about the meeting and how it had gone, and I realized that I had interrupted one of my colleagues of color in order to sort of show how woke I am. I mean, that's not the way I was thinking about it, but like, to sort of show her how smart I was about DEI stuff, and then I started thinking back and realized that was actually a pattern that I was guilty of, of interrupting colleagues or people of color in order to like, prove myself. That's really messed up, folks.(Tracie chuckles) It's really not, that was not my best moment, certainly not my best pattern. And once I became aware of it, I could work to counter it and address it and stop doing that, and so it was not an easy moment as I made this realization, and in some ways it was easier for me to counter it because I made the realization and wasn't called in. It might've been harder for me to hear it if I was called in, I don't know, but I just want to sort of like, name it, like that's a sizable microaggression to be interrupting a colleague of color about this in general, in particular about this work, and so, and I'm sharing this not for sympathy, listeners, but so that you can recognize that like, mistakes are normal and they happen and they're part of the work, and as April says, it's not about sort of being perfect in any given moment. It's about continuing to make progress over our lifetimes, and that's how the vision that April's describing is gonna get there if all of us commit to doing that, even when, especially when we realize that we could have behaved better, differently, in past moments. Thanks for letting me share.- I just had another quick, thank you, that was wonderful. Thank you for giving that example, and I think it's so important because it's so easy for many of us to, as we listen to different public thought leaders to start to think that they are above these different dynamics, so I think it's always helpful when we can let folks know about our past or current growing edges. Another idea that I just thought of as well to add just a little bit more depth to this before we close is to go deeper into this question. I think that there's also another variable, because basically I think what Tracie and I were, I think what we said is helpful in general, but then I think if we go to a deeper level, I think depending upon the different variables, and your mentioning of the calling in piece reminded me of this, is I would say also assessing in a given moment, one that in general, it's good to interrupt these different racist patterns, and also assessing, is this a leader who is likely going to be sharing this publicly? Is this a staff person or professional who is responsible for working with folks of color and who is holding this belief? Is this someone who is in, I mean, it's all related, but who is in a slightly more inconsequential role? You know, so I think that there's also, you know, to look at some different scenarios where it's not just, you know, water cooler equivalent of virtual, or as we start to return, you know, in person water cooler chat, but also, if it's, say, the executive director, which is not so likely, but it happens, right, but you know, where someone who is responsible for a number of things, you know, in these kinds of scenarios, there are different styles of leadership here, as some scholars discuss. I'm wanting to quote the precise person. We'll include it in our show notes, we'll include a reference to the scholar in our show notes, but I first learned about this concept from Imani Chapman, a wonderful Jewish leader of color, this concept of approaches to this work that in general often leaders can fall on a spectrum and often can land in one camp or the other, or have varying degrees of one or the other of light versus heat, and what I'm saying is more of a light approach, admittedly more of a light approach, that that is my preference. I definitely have both light and heat in my toolkit, but I tend to like to do the majority of my work from a place of light, meaning sharing information, trying to make a compelling case, using diplomacy, and occasionally leveraging some heat or agitation at times when there's stagnation. You know, so from my light based perspective and approach, I prefer, unless there's like an acute issue that needs to be interrupted immediately, I generally prefer when I see a leader who I respect and who I think in general is on my team around these types of issues to call them in and to talk to them in the context of our relationship and open up an opportunity for conversation to say some things that I noticed and how that either affected me or how I saw that was affecting other people and to bring this to this person's attention and, you know, see if there's any way that, you know, in here, if, you know, how we can work on adjusting(April laughing) that dynamic and but now I'm starting to think about some specific situations I've been in, which is getting too into the weeds for some folks because it, you know, and also choose some of the things I would say that I decided to hold off on is also coming from a vantage point that at times it's literally been my full time work to be the person who's helping to steward an organization through that, which is different than a number of folks, right, so I might offer myself as a resource because that literally was my full time work, which doesn't make sense for a number of folks, but you might want to say, I'm happy to be here as a supportive resource for you. I suspect, you know, my sense is that you weren't intentionally trying to be hurtful, but I'm coming to learn more and more. This is what I'm coming to learn, y'all, over the past several years, is that most of the time people are unintentionally perpetuating oppressive or hurtful dynamics, and it's much less about an issue of intention and more of an issue about building awareness to address and shift impact to mitigate damage and ideally to move in a more positive, helpful, productive direction.- Right, right.- You know, and so I find it's helpful when I'm talking with most folks. Now what's interesting is that at times when racial microaggressions happen, even then, a lot of the, sometimes people are being intentional, like there's at times distasteful humor that's intentional, but I find that more often than not, people are, they might be intentionally trying to be humorous, but they may not really be fully aware that what they're saying is really out of line and racist.- Yeah, yeah.- And so again, those strategies we offered earlier in the session work, and also, if this is someone who is a professional partner of yours or is your supervisor or someone you have a more intensive relationship, you might want to consider this additional approach that I've mentioned around asking them to reach out and be in conversation and to, again, my approach, it doesn't have to be, but especially depending upon how you are affected, I'm not trying to tone police in any way, but my personal approach is to come with calm and with clarity, demonstrate clarity to them that I understand their inherent goodness, that that's not up for debate, but that I noticed this impact that they're having that I think they not be aware of.- [Tracie] Do you have a question, insight, or suggestion you'd like us to consider discussing on the podcast? Go to jewstalkracialjustice.com and fill in the form there and maybe we'll talk about your question on the air.(mellow music)- [April] 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.